


Return to This Place

by ScarletteStar1



Category: Penny Dreadful (TV)
Genre: AU, F/F, Sir Malcolm shaped demon, Vanessa and demon, ballantree moors, cutwife, different timeline, suggested malnessa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 06:55:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16781884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletteStar1/pseuds/ScarletteStar1
Summary: The Sir Malcolm shaped demon is beckoning Vanessa again. . . this time he lures her out to the moors and to Joan Clayton's cottage.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I have a fairly different head canon for PD... and in this story, the time line is bent a bit so you just sort of have to go with it and see what happens and what makes sense. I wrote an earlier work called Little Bird, in which Vanessa goes to the Cutwife for help during her illness for reasons related to her Malcolm shaped demon... so this story sort of takes place after that, let's say season two-ish... I had an idea and I wanted to play around with it, and this is what happened. I love the dynamic between Vanessa and Joan Clayton so very much and wanted to explore that further, so I had to create a different time line in order to have them meet again, because in the original series, they kill Joan off. I also love the Sir Malcolm shaped demon, and if you have read any of my other stuff, you know I'm a huge Malnessa shipper, so I also wanted to put in some hints of Malnessa into this fic. Originally, this was meant to be a super short one off, but it ended up getting sort of out of control, so I am posting it in two installments. As always, thank you so very, very much for taking the time to read and I welcome all comments and love to hear from you!! xoxoxo, SS.

She arrives at the stone pilings in the dead of night by light of a waxing, gibbous moon. She stands beyond the wall, staring up at the dark cottage.

Inside, the Cutwife sleeps and does not wake to greet her, but senses her presence, and recognizes her, even through the haze of a dream. Still asleep, she releases the spell of protection that holds Vanessa back, allows the young woman to pass through her gate like a shadow, then binds her property once more.

Vanessa enters the house, drops her bag, then her body onto the couch, and falls asleep before she can even note the earthy aroma of the place. Dried basil and clay and crushed petals of spring long past. Fire and smoke turned to ash. Her slumber is deep and dreamless.

===

“So you’ve returned then.” Dawn’s light glitters in Joan’s amber eye. It’s the first thing Vanessa sees when she opens herself to morning.

“I told you I would,” she replies as she blinks the day into focus.

The Cutwife grunts. “Sure you did. But you didn’t come this time for me.”

“I did,” Vanessa insists.

“Save your indignation for someone you can manipulate,” she says, but her tone is less than harsh. She’s found a spot on the couch to sit by Vanessa’s waist and her hand rests on the crest of Vanessa’s hip. Vanessa stretches and rolls onto her back. As she does, the older woman’s hand travels naturally to Vanessa’s stomach. She does not pull it away. “Calling for you? Is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do,” Joan sighs feeling the heat flow beneath her hand. “I heard him on the wind, begging for you. And I saw it predicted in smoke a few nights back. I knew you’d not be far off.”

Vanessa brings herself to a sitting position and tucks her hair behind her ears. “Don’t know why he would bring me here,” she yawns. “Perhaps it is my destiny,” she offers.

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” the older woman gripes and pushes herself to stand. “And you can bet your pretty, pink tongue I will have plenty to say about it.”

=========

She watches the young woman’s hands as they handle the carcass. Joan could have done plenty of things with the hare’s pelt; making it into a stuffed, decorative doll of sorts seems ridiculous and frivolous. Yet, something about the girl’s fingers, as they deftly assemble and sew, transfixes Joan.

“Have you any mirror?” Vanessa asks without looking up. Joan scowls and does not answer. “Never mind,” Vanessa mutters. She smooths the fur around the rabbit’s eyes and examines her work.

“Must admit this is a surprising craft, Little Scorpion. I’d not have figured your fine, soft, small fingers for such brutish diversion.”

“We used to spend entire winters thus. Mina’s solarium was filled with our creations.” Vanessa chuckles. “This is my first hare though. Mina and Peter had a whole family of them. I never favored the tame animals, but needs must. Ahh, he’s just about complete. The eyes are lacking, but he’s still rather handsome.” She sighs and looks toward the door as the wind picks up, and adds, “He looks almost real.”

“He always does.”

“Yes.”

“But you know the difference?” Joan touches the fur of the hare with fingers that are more concerned than angry. Both seem to realize they no longer speak of the deceased creature.

“I thought I did.”

“And now?” Joan’s fingers twitch, but her eyes do not blink away from Vanessa for a moment.

“I don’t know.”

“Hah. I know for you then. You’d run off on me with either one of them in a hare’s breadth.”

Vanessa stands and reaches for her tobacco and papers. She obtains them, but before rolling her own cigarette, she packs a pipe for the older woman. She lights it, puffs a bit and passes it along. “You sound almost jealous, cackling like an old crow. Perhaps I’ll stuff one of those for you next.”

“Only if you want to be cursed, will you stuff a crow, foolish girl.”

“I’m already cursed,” Vanessa says as her fingers busy themselves with her tobacco and paper. She runs her tongue along the edge of the paper and seals her cigarette, but holds it absently for a moment before she lights it. “Could you blame me, cursed as I am, if I did leave? Could you blame me for desiring a taste of tenderness in this harsh life?”

The Cutwife puffs at her pipe. Her smile is sour when she says, “I’d like to meet the beast who convinced you the that the scorpion in its hard shell, with its poisoned stingers is worthy of tenderness.”

“Oh, you’re cruel,” Vanessa whispers.

“Why else would you be here?” Joan sniffs. She gives the rabbit a shove on the table so it is arm’s reach from her. “There are reasons you return to this place.”

Vanessa swallows the tears threatening the back of her throat and lights her cigarette. She touches her tongue with her fingertip to remove an errant fleck of tobacco. She exhales at the same time Joan does. Their smoke drifts up, dances in delicate tendrils toward the rafters, and entwines around the talismans and herbs drying there.

=========

At night she is a bitch in heat. She scratches the floorboards with her hands and feet, she growls and hisses, trying to escape the cottage. He thrums for her on the wind, calling her out, beckoning her with promises of sweetness and oblivion. She aches with want. Air blows frigid over the moors, but the moment she closes her eyes she is warm against the faun brown wool of his jacket.

“Sit you down, foolish child,” Joan admonishes when Vanessa’s barefoot pacing grows wearisome. “It’s bad enough I’ve to listen to his wings beating on the wind out there. I’ll not suffer the pattering of your infernal little feet as well, and you’re not going out there and freeze to death for a demon. Might as well get you warm by the fire.”

 _I’d die for him_ , Vanessa pants in her chest. Her head is low. She looks up at Joan and snarls. She whips around, hair flying up from her shoulders. _I hear you! I’ll come! I’ll die for you! Again and again, against you, bend me back over your arm and breath me. I’m here; don’t leave without me!_ Vanessa rakes her nails against the wooden panels of the door.

“Come on now,” the Cutwife puts a shawl around Vanessa’s bare shoulders and pulls her toward the couch. “We might even have a snow tonight, ahh, I can feel it in my hip. And with this full moon, we could work a snow moon spell to cast this unholiness out of my moors.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” Vanessa snaps.

Joan raises her eyebrows and opens her mouth, then spits out a nasty little laugh in Vanessa’s direction. “Wouldn’t I though? Entertaining as it is to watch him torture you thus in a silly attempt to get back at me. You both underestimate me.”

This last bit gathers Vanessa’s attention. “What do you mean?”

“Why do you think you’re here?” Joan pushes Vanessa down onto the dusty cushions of the sofa. She walks back to the table and pours a cup of tea which she brings back and extends to the shivering woman on her couch. Vanessa growls violently and slaps the mug out of Joan’s hand. It flies across the room and shatters on the floor in chunks of thick pottery. The fragrant, steaming water seeps into the wooden floor. “Oh, this again? You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

“What do you mean?” Vanessa demands. “Tell me what you mean!”

“Around and around we go, like the snake eternally eating its tail. You’ve seen the image no doubt? Eh?” Joan shuffles over to the broken mug and bends over to collect the pieces. She crouches down, knees spread open wide. She clucks her tongue as she considers the stain the tea has left on her floorboards. She picks up the biggest piece and places it like a shell in the palm of her hand. Into this curved receptacle she places the other, smaller shards. “Your eyes are different, but I knew it when I saw you first. Not right away. I’ll admit, it took me some time to recognize it.”

“Recognize what?” Vanessa’s voice is deep and bitter.

“You’re the reincarnation of the younger me.” Joan stands and brings the pieces of broken pottery to the table. “You broke that in big enough chunks; I believe I can salvage it, but that’s work for tomorrow. Daywork.” She mutters idly as she searches the table for her pipe.

“Reincarnation?”

“Mmmh,” she pushes a wad of tobacco into her pipe with her thumb.

“How can that be? You’re still alive.”

“Yes, yes. And still, here we are. Snake and tail. It’s why he’s after you.” She smooths her hands down the front of her apron and curls her lips in a thin smile. “I’ve aged after all. And I was never one for his devil charms. He never forgave me for spurning him. So, here we are.”

“I don’t understand,” Vanessa says.

“Oh please. You’re not typically slow, Girl.” She reaches out and jabs Vanessa’s forehead with two of her crooked fingers. “Either you’re being intentionally obtuse or lust has turned what’s inside that lovely head to cotton.”

“You taunt me! I’m no reincarnation! You’re alive as I am, ugly as you are!”

“Am I though? Oh, ugly yes. But alive? Hah. Partly yes. Partly no.” Joan leans on the back of a chair as she puffs her pipe. “You’re used to a demimonde that is dark and dank with all manner of vile, sordid thing; not used to someplace like my cozy cottage with its herbs and charms. Eh?” She chuckles as she watches Vanessa’s face attempt to absorb this information. “Think about what I do here. Put the pieces together. You asked me for a mirror a few days back; well look here. I’m your mirror. He wants you to snuff out me, and old and ugly as I am, I’m not quite ready to go yet. There are things. . . things I’d like to finish teaching you, or helping you remember as it may be before I end my days.”

“You lie!”

“Never.”

“I’ve no desire to sit and listen to these riddles. Let me out of here!” Vanessa launches her body up off the sofa and propels herself toward the door. Joan follows her with her eyes, but does not take a single step toward her. She expels a word under her breath and Vanessa stops short in her tracks as though a fly caught in a web. For a moment, Vanessa struggles against the spell. She leans forward and back and tries to bring her arms up from her sides.

“Come to this now, have we? Well, the moon can only stay full for so long. And I’m even more stubborn than I am ugly. So Girl, sit you down.”

Vanessa walks calmly to the couch. She sits. She blinks several times and looks around the cottage as though she is just waking up and trying to focus. “What have you done?”

“I’ve done what I need to do to keep you safe.” Joan sets a kettle over the hearth. “Some tea now, perhaps?”

Outside, the wind blows up in a horrifying screech. Vanessa looks around in a wild panic, but can not move from the couch. “Let me out, let me out!” She chants.

“There now, drink your tea,” the Cut wife brings a cup up to Vanessa’s lips and Vanessa sips and is surprised when her mouth is filled with a warm, sweet, minty beverage. “Keep you close tonight, I will,” Joan sighs as she helps Vanessa to lie down on the couch. She rolls up a lambskin and puts it under Vanessa’s head. “That tea will take effect straight away. I’d guess you’re feeling it already. Oh, you can glower at me all you want with those angry eyes, but you’ll close them soon enough. There now. Moon won’t stay full forever.” She runs her fingers over Vanessa’s hair, smoothing it away from her face. Vanessa whimpers and writhes against the cushions. The wind screams and Vanessa arches her back violently in response. The sudden motion widens Joan’s eyes, but she does not pull her hand away.


	2. Chapter 2

The moon does not stay full forever.

In its natural course, it begins to wane, and with it, Vanessa’s fever to escape the confines of the little house on the moor.

Joan offers a wooden cup to Vanessa. “Tell me what you think of this,” she says and Vanessa wonders if there is a touch of mischief in the old woman’s voice.

“What is it?”

“A witch’s brew,” Joan chortles. She explains that in the summer she had put up honey and fermented it into mead. Vanessa sniffs at the golden liquid and is reminded of being back in the orchards near her childhood home in the late days of summer. She dips her tongue into the cup. The wine is strong and sweet.

“When did you start keeping bees?” Vanessa asks. The wine makes her smile.

“I don’t keep bees, but hives are easy enough to find if you look in the right places. Like anything else, I think you'll find.”

“It’s delicious,” Vanessa sips deeply. The beverage warms her like an enchantment from head to toe. The fuzzy sensation makes her look up suddenly at Joan. “You haven’t poisoned this too, have you?”

“Not at all,” Joan answers and takes a deep draught herself to prove her point. “And anyway, I didn’t poison you that night. I simply bound you to this place so you’d not run off and fly away on a Satanic wind.” Snow has kept them in the cottage for several days. They have baked bread and made stew and sat for hours in companionable silence with sewing or sleep.

“Do you expect me to thank you?” Vanessa quips with a sideways smile.

“Nah. Was self preservation more than anything else,” Joan sighs.

For a moment, they hold their cups in silence. With each glowing sip, Vanessa is transported back to a time of peace and prosperity, a time when every day held a promise of something wonderful. She’d not meant to fall in love, so long ago, and yet it seemed inevitable. Even now, as she thinks back on it she finds herself at a loss for how she could have altered the course of events.

“What are you thinking?” Joan asks. “Hmmmh, no, don’t tell me. I’ll tell you. I see towering green walls, a forest? No, hedges. . . a maze of hedges. And there are more secrets hidden within those hedges than there are leaves on their branches. Stolen things, eh? Things you treasured, but nothing you could have and hold and keep on a shelf or wear around your white, little neck. Kisses. Embraces. You pulled him back, but he left anyway. He wasn’t yours to keep despite all the ways he let you touch him and all the ways he made you moan and cry out. You’d have done anything. You still would, stupid slut.”

“Stop!” Vanessa commands.

“Truth hard to hear, Girl? Better get used to it. Avoiding it won’t keep you safe. The other one, the one who wears his form to get you wet and warm, he knows you’d do anything. He knows it and he’ll use it against you. You need to learn to protect yourself. I won’t always be here to do it all for you. And why would I? The sooner you can learn to resist his dark charms, the better off we will both be.”

“A little more spice for your life than you initially bargained for?” The wine has loosened Vanessa’s tongue, but still she says nothing of what truly transpired the night of the spellbound tea. She says nothing of how Joan dipped her fingers in a little dish of warmed oil and lifted Vanessa’s skirts so she could massage her thighs and belly until Vanessa couldn’t tell if they were relaxed or burning. She says nothing of how the Cutwife’s fingers- typically quick and rough- slipped, slowly and easily into her, up to the last knuckle, and how Vanessa arched into them, against them, breathed deep into her body and let go in hot wave after wave of silken, effortless climaxes. She says nothing of how Joan’s typically gruff voice softened and told her she was good, _such a good girl_ , as she left her fingers inside of Vanessa and rubbed any lingering ache from her cursed body. Vanessa had fallen asleep, but not before she felt Joan cover her with a blanket and whisper against her forehead, _You see now, we’ve made the wind stop._

And it was true it had been silent the rest of the night and each night since.

“Still, I think you shall miss me, even a little, when I go,” Vanessa suggests.

Joan coughs raggedly and says, “You’re even more of a conceited fool than I thought if you believe I need or want you here.”

Vanessa does not ask if Joan made the full moon snow spell, although the wine brings the words to her lips. Vanessa shivers and pulls her shawl closer around her shoulders. She sets her cup down and rises to stir the fire. “We need more wood,” she says. “I’ll go out to the wood pile and fetch some.” Joan says nothing in response. She says nothing of the fact this will be Vanessa’s first time outside the cottage since the moon. But she lets her open the door and slip out to get the wood.

Outside, Vanessa trudges through the snow to approach the wood pile with purpose. She is not looking for Malcolm when she sees his form on the horizon. Her breath comes up in heated clouds before her eyes. He is in front of her, in the ghost of her breath, then he is far off again. Even from this distance, she senses his smile, how the curling of his lips make his eyes crinkle and his entire face seem merry. It’s a face she remembers from childhood, from when he’d return from voyages. It’s a face not shone to her in many years. . . and now. . . He does not need to raise his hand to wave or beckon to her. From across this frozen expanse, they regard one another. Vanessa realizes her hand hovers mid air and brings it down to rest on a piece of wood. The solidity of the log jolts her back into herself. The visage on the horizon wavers. Under her feet the earth trembles. She fills her arms with wood and returns to the cottage.

“What did you see,” Joan asks her back as Vanessa busies herself placing the logs by the fire.

“Nothing,” she replies. She rubs her hands before the fire. She turns to look at Joan.

“You don’t want to tell me?”

“ _You’re_ not going to tell _me_?” Vanessa snaps, then regrets her harsh tone. “It’s nothing. I’m here.”

“And yet the prickling energy in the air makes me curious all the same. I know he was out there. I knew it before you even went out the door. What did he show you?”

Vanessa exhales. She picks up the wooden cup with her honey wine in it and drinks down the rest of it. “He showed me my entire world returned to me, exactly as I would like it. He showed me how everything I’ve lost could be mine again in the palm of my very hand.” She opens her fingers and splays them between herself and Joan. She blinks back tears, and behind her own eyes finds the reflection of his, glittering green like the ocean of her youth, puffed up after a storm. But she knows had she approached the form on the moors, the eyes into which she would gaze would be black as tar. Joan reaches for the jar of mead and pours some more into each of their cups. Vanessa swallows hard and says, “He showed me what it is like to have someone look upon me with love and adoration and offered it all up to me for eternity.”

“Ahh. Tempting, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Back to the hedgerow you’d go, eh? Feel his fingers down the front of your dress. Even now you can practically hear the sound your lacy things make as he rips them so he can get at you. Oh, to be young and devious and so full of blood and longing. Settle that eyebrow back into its place, Child. I may be old but I still have a pulse and a memory and you never quite loose the desire.”

“But you resisted him. Always. You told me this.”

“I did,” Joan closes her eyes and leans back in her chair momentarily. “Doesn’t mean I wasn’t tempted.” She sits back up and studies the young woman before her who quivers with suppressed sobs. “You grieve. But you’ll live.”

“Yes.”

=========

“I am in your debt, yet again,” Vanessa says softly.

Joan coughs. “Nah. There’s no debt where nothing has been given, Child.”

“We both know that to be untrue.” Vanessa reaches for the old woman’s hand and holds it in her own. The wind has quieted to a gentle breeze. It stirs Vanessa’s hair around her face and neck. She wills herself not to cry, but knows as soon as she is alone in the carriage she will weep. “I will return.” She offers the words with a squeeze of her hands, and as she does so, she tries to memorize the feeling of Joan’s flesh and knuckles.

“Yes, you will return to this place.”

=========

_You will return to this place. . . in three, two, one. . ._

Dr. Seward is shoving two cigarettes between her lips as Vanessa opens her eyes. The scritching of the transcription machine has stopped. Vanessa watches in silence as Dr. Seward brings up the flame of her lighter with a flick of her thumb. Vanessa blinks the room into focus as she returns from the haze of hypnosis. The women stare at one another. Dr. Seward lights the cigarettes and hands one to Vanessa. Both women inhale deeply and exhale. Their smoke drifts up in a muddled cloud to the ceiling of the office.

“These memories,” Dr. Seward begins. She stands from her chair and walks out from behind her desk. She leans against her desk, in front of Vanessa. She hovers above Vanessa, like the smoke. “To whom do they belong?”

“What?” Vanessa frowns in confusion.

“You’ve told me a story just now. Where did you hear it?”

“I did not hear it. I lived it. It is no story. It is my life,” Vanessa says.

“Save it, Miss Ives. Your treatment won’t work if you are dishonest and I’ve already told you I won’t be manipulated. Now. The truth please.”

“What?” Vanessa says again. “You don’t believe me?” Dr. Seward simply stares at her as she drags on her cigarette. Vanessa sets her cigarette into the ashtray and clutches at her hands, willing herself not to scratch at the rough patches that seem to beg for her fingernails. She falls over into herself, onto her knees. “I’m so tired,” she whimpers.

“Pay Renfield on your way out,” Seward says. “And don’t bother to rebook. This is not going anywhere.”

Vanessa rises with a sudden force that seems surprising to both women. She takes a step toward the black-clad alienist. Her hands are fists. “You are absolutely correct, Doctor,” she snarls. “We go nowhere because we are the snake eternally eating its tail, you and I. Your eyes are different, but I know you just the same. Test me if you like, but I know you and I know you know these to be my words, my stories, my truths!” Vanessa is practically nose to nose with Dr. Seward, as the vehemence of her words have advanced her position in the office. Dr. Seward raises her hand to Vanessa’s shoulder and pushes her back, slightly and gently. She walks past Vanessa to a cupboard and opens it to gather a bottle and two glasses.

“I don’t know about you, Miss Ives,” she says evenly. “But before we go any further, I need a good, stiff drink. Brandy alright with you?”

“Yes,” Vanessa says. She no longer feels the urge to scratch her wrist. She stands for another moment until she hears Dr. Seward begin to slosh the brandy into the glasses. Then at last, she feels like she can sit again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for taking the time to read this.... if you would like to leave me a comment, I always try to respond and I love to hear from you... also, if you have any other PD prompts, particularly related to Vanessa/Sir Malcolm of Joan Clayton/Dr. Seward, I am very open to suggestions... xoxoxoxo. SS..


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